Sax-a-quilt

Spring Has Sprung! Flowers are blooming, trees have leaves, the birds and the bees are back. And while we are on the topic of Birds and Bees, I'll just say that it seems like babies are being born faster than I can make quilts for them.  The kids have at least 4 teachers who are having babies in the next 3 weeks.  One of those special babies happens to be arriving for Jack's Saxophone teacher and his wife.
I wanted to make him a special quilt because he has really done a wonderful job instructing Jack this year.  However, I was running out of ideas until I ran across this quilt on Pintrist, by Stormy-Day.  I have always had a special fondness for Elephants.  Initially I believe that is why I pinned this quilt.  Well, that and the awesome colors, beautiful placement and the awesome quilting.  It all just screamed at me.

Elephant Quilt by Dana at Stormy-Day

I was inspired to do a similar version, but out of a saxophone.  I found a simplistic version of a saxophone in clip art.  My son Jack, ever the purist, helped me discern what I absolutely needed to include on the quilt to make it look "real".  I took some measurements of the clip art, multiplied all of my measurements by 3 and sketched out an enlarged version of the sax on a larger piece of paper.

If you check out Dana at Stormy-Day talks about how she developed her Elephant quilt.

I had purchased a few selected solids and a purple and polka-dot pattern for the backing at Jo-Anns, I pulled a few scraps from my stash to come up with a slightly more infant color scheme.  I layer the strips out in the shape of my saxophone and sewed them together in a 'rainbow-ish' color pattern.  After I had a very rough version of the saxophone sewn together I traced the inverted drawing on to the back of some Heat and bond. I fused the heat and bond to the back of the saxophone strips and then cut out my Saxophone shape.  following manufacturers directions I fused the Saxophone strips to the white backing.  Using a wide zig-zag stitch I machine appliquéd the saxophone to the white background.   I cut out 3 different sized circles and hand stitched them to the saxophone to look like keys.

Please excuse the wrinkly mess.

I trimmed the background to 36" X44". I cut out 42 assorted 4"x4" squares and bordered the white backing with these.

My original plan was to use the quilting as a tool to emulate "music" coming out of the Saxophone.  I cut out 3 heart sizes and used them as templates to make it look as though hearts not notes were streaming out of the horn.  However in my rush to quilt this beauty I got a little over zealous and quilted the hearts a bit too densely.  You can barely see them.  Sad, I know.  

With the exception of the quilting I really LOVE how this quilt turned out.  I think I may have to make another in Black and White.  I think that the absence of color would be striking. Now this one is all wrapped up and ready for her new home.